


Crazy in Love

by kirana



Series: Supah Sekrit Christmas in July [1]
Category: Smallville
Genre: Christmas, Futurefic, M/M, Reconciliation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-25
Updated: 2006-12-25
Packaged: 2018-01-21 03:46:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1536389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kirana/pseuds/kirana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clark's first Christmas in Metropolis was looking pretty bleak. Sadly, that didn't change after a visit from a mysterious benefactor. At least, not right away . . . .</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crazy in Love

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mahaliem](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mahaliem/gifts).



        It was his first Christmas away from home. As the newbie in the newsroom, he had drawn the short end of the stick when it came to taking holidays, a fact that had not bothered him until his parents had gently suggested he stay in metropolis this year.

        "You should be careful when you use your powers, Clark," his father had said, repeating his tired old warnings as if anyone at the Planet really cared where one Clark Kent spent his Christmas. his mother had agreed, the worry in her eyes most likely the residue of a stressful year worrying about her wayward alien son.

        It _had_ been a busy year, Clark acknowledged, with Lois naming him 'Superman', of all things. He'd managed a bit of petty revenge and used his ties with 'Superman' to scoop Lois and gain a foothold on the ladder of a reporter's life. And, of course, with the newfound prominence of Superman, criminals had been crawling out of the woodwork lately, all more than eager to boast that _they_ would take down the Big Blue, and it didn't really help that his best friend was saying he was a menace to society and a danger to world order.

        On the other hand, it wasn't as if he and Lex had been particularly good friends even before he'd gone to Metropolis for university. At best, the move had provided them long periods of cooling off after short periods of accusations. At worst, it had put Clark right in the middle of Lex's old stomping ground and well able to hear _all_ the old news, along with a hefty bit of the new news. It wasn't something he'd normally acknowledge, but, with the spirit of a lonesome Christmas hovering over his shoulder, he felt it was sufficiently private to admit that maybe he'd gone looking for the worst of Lex to believe in.

        He sighed and poked a gentle finger at his Christmas tree. It wasn't really a tree as much as a paper pop-up. But it was the last Christmas card he'd received from Lex and, as such, he always made sure it was out in a place of honour, no matter where he was spending his Christmas. It may have _seemed_ slightly pathetic, what with Lex being a morally ambiguous businessman, but Clark preferred the term 'crazy in love'.

        Not that Lex knew. Heck, not that anyone knew, for that matter. Sure, Lana might have looked at him funny when he'd broken off their relationship, but since he's still been stuck in that happy area of Egypt by the Nile, he was still convinced it was because _he_ was dumping _her_.

        He sighed again and decided to go to bed. Not because, as he had so fondly believed as a child, Santa would come sooner, but because even he'd had his fill of patheticness. Sleep would eat up more lonely time than being awake would.

***

        Clark woke up the next morning to the glorious scent of fresh-brewed coffee. He cuddled into his pillow and smiled sleepily. Automatic timers were a wonderful thing. Except . . . .

        His smile edged into a frown. His coffee machine's timer had stopped working a month after he'd bought it.

        Reluctantly, he decided it bore investigation and opened his eyes. Sitting on his bedside table was a cup of gently steaming coffee, directly in his live of sight. Now fully alert, Clark sat up. OSmeone had been in his apartment. Someone who had made him coffee, poured him a cup, and brought it into his bedroom, all without waking him up.

        First, he had to inspect the coffee. invulnerable alien or not, his body craved the coffee and it would be a crying shame if the person who had made the coffee had poisoned it as well. A cautious sniff brought only the delicious scent of fresh coffee. he frowned and sniffed again. Fresh coffee brewed with water that hadn't come out of his kitchen tap. And the coffee beans ground to make the coffee were a _distinct_ cut above what a newbie journalist could afford. _Plus_ , the combination smelled somehow . . . familiar. Then he shrugged and took a sip. Better quality or not, at least it wasn't poisoned and he wasn't about to call the police of a break-in that left him with good coffee.

        He took another sip and amended his thought. _Great_ coffee.

        He wandered out of his bedroom, savouring the _great_ coffee, and stopped dead. Yeah, someone had been practicing a little breaking and entering in his apartment, only they seemed to have gotten a bit mixed up. Instead of taking his things and leaving him nothing but empty space, they had taken his empty space and left him with a lot of things.

        A Christmas tree, the angel on top just brushing the ceiling, dominated the top half of the room. The bottom half was a chaotic collection of gaily wrapped gifts. His sofa was hidden under them. His TV was floating free in a sea of ribbons and bows. He was kinda glad he hadn't taken home that kitten from the other day, 'cause he wasn't sure he'd ever be able to find her.

        After a moment, he checked out the gifts with x-ray vision. Nothing glowing a suspicious green, no ominous lead-lined boxes . . . . In fact, it looked like most of the boxes contained . . . clothes? Except for the ones with suspiciously state-of-the-art brand names in electronics. His eyes narrowed as he took another look at the clothing and managed to make out a few more brand names.

        Someone had seen fit to break into his home, make him _great_ coffee, and spend a small fortune on him. The questions was, why? Unfortunately, he had a pretty good guess as to 'who'. But even that didn't give a hint of a motivation for Lex Luthor, avowed critic of Superman, to send a plethora of gifts to the man he had to strongly suspect flew around in brightly coloured tights.

        He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and headed for the tiny space that called itself a kitchen. Breakfast, that was what he needed. After breakfast, all hallucinations of Christmas cheer would be shown as the product of low blood sugar. Surely even invulnerable Kryptonians could have low blood sugar.

        He poked around his cupboards for something to eat and felt a suspicion grow in his mind at the utter and complete lack of food this yielded. It looked as is his little B&E mouse _had_ made off with something in return for the largess in his living room. He finally gave in before he cracked a cupboard door from slamming it too hard and scanned his kitchen. No food. at all. Even the cookies his mother had sent him, the ones he'd been saving for a particularly good bout of self-pity, were gone.

        Lex would pay for this.

        His stomach gurgled and he collapsed into a chair. Coffee alone would not satisfy his alien tummy. He brought the cup to his lips again and frowned when his elbow slipped on the table just before he was going to take a sip. he lifted it and glared at the white rectangle with his name on it in familiar handwriting. A quick glance through it revealed, once again, no glowing green dust and he weighted actually opening it and finding out what Lex wanted against actually running home and piteously begging for some breakfast from his mom.

        In the end, it wasn't much of a choice, but he kept his scowl on for the look of the thing as he peeled an edge of the envelope up enough to stick his finger in and rip it the rest of the way. The ward inside was surprisingly shiny and he opened it with no small amount of trepidation.

        "Clark," it began.

>   
> _  
> I hope you won't think me presumptuous for trying to spread a little Christmas cheer, but evidence suggested your Christmas wasn't going to be too cheerful. If you can bring yourself to share some "Auld Lang Syne" with an old friend, I'll be at Helga's House of Pancakes._
> 
> _Lex_
> 
> _PS_
> 
> _Wear the red package with the gold bow.  
> _  
> 

        Clark had to smile, reluctant as it was. Lex, while appearing to leave the choice entirely in Clark's hands, had assumed correctly that his 'suggestions' would be followed like the laws he knew they were.

        He sighed and stood up again, preparing himself to brave the chaos of the Christmas room in search of the package Lex had mentioned.

***

        Clark had to admit, as he fidgeted in the wait-to-be-seated area of Helga's, Lex had a good fashion sense. The outfit he'd directed Clark to had been a perfect fit and, Clark was pleased to see, included the colours of his Kryptonian house.

        Not the mention, the balls to come to a family restaurant for breakfast on Christmas morning. It was packed, as far as Clark's eye could see, mostly with the requisite large family groups. He couldn't even see Lex in the multitudes, and it took some doing to overlook Metropolis' favourite businessman.

        "Sir, I can show you to your party."

        Clark blinked out of x-ray vision and looked at the hostess. She repeated her offer and he nodded, murmuring "thanks" before he followed her into the tortuous maze of the restaurant, dodging, or trying to, such obstacles as feet in the aisle, too many chairs gathered around one table, and even a few instances of impromptu rearranging as two large parties recognised each other and thought, hey, nothing said love quite so much as other people's stubbed toes.

        Finally, h was shown into one of the restaurant's conference rooms and he breathed an unconscious sigh of relief when the door closed behind him, muting—slightly—the babble he'd trekked through.

        "Merry Christmas, Clark."

        The familiar voice snapped his eyes open. Lex Luthor sat at a conservatively decorated—for a Luthor—table.

        "Merry Christmas, Lex," he said somewhat blankly in return. _Guessing_ it was Lex and actually _knowing_ it was Lex were two entirely separate things. "Uh, _why_?"

        In answer, Lex held up what he'd been playing with. It was a Christmas card, one that looked horribly familiar to Clark. As if to confirm his worst fears, Lex opened it, unfolding the Christmas tree with a gold star on top.

        Okay, being crazy in love was one thing, but standing for total and utter embarrassment was _not_ part of that.

        he started feeling behind him for the doorknob. "You know, I really appreciate the gifts you left me," he said, "but, uh, as the junior reporter, I have to, well, _report_ to work today. So if you want, I'd be happy to take a rain check, butIhavetogettowork." The last was sort of rushed out as he started turning the knob. However, before he could make good his escape . . . .

        "You're already there." It was with great trepidation that Clark looked directly at Lex again. Lex was smiling genially, always a bad sign. "Congratulations, Clark. You have the honour of an interview with the founder of LexCorp. Why don't you have a seat, Clark, so we3 can get started." Less a question and, once again, more of a _law_ , very much in the way of Lex. "Come on, Clark," Lex said coaxingly, "I won't bite." And this, too, was Lex, but Lex as Clark had first known him, in Smallville.

        Clark moved forward, gingerly taking the chair opposite Lex. He choose some pancakes at Lex's encouraging gesture, but didn't expect to enjoy them..

         _Then again_ , he thought after a bite, _if my tastebuds are telling me right, these are **Helga's** own pancakes and it would take a worse man than me to not enjoy them to the fullest._

        Lex was gracious enough to let him finish one plate before speaking again. "Clark, what answers can I give to you today?"

        Clark, caught in the act of reaching for more pancakes, froze for a moment before spearing four more for his plate. "Good ones, hopefully," he replied. He sat back in his chair and looked Lex straight in the eye. "Why?"

        "Why what?" Lex countered. Clark was heartened by that, strangely enough; it showed he wasn't the only one nervous.

        "Why the coffee? Why the gifts? Why the breakfast and the card?"

        "And why the interview, I suppose?" Lex said, adding it onto Clark's list. Clark nodded silently and watched Lex take in a deep breath before letting it out slowly. "Right. 'Tis the season of forgiveness?"

        Clark narrowed his eyes. "For what?" Okay, so he _knew_ for what, but sometimes—most of the time, really—his mouth said things without getting approval from his brain.

        Lex frowned at him in turn. "For doing exactly that," the bald man said in an unusually mild voice, considering what they were discussing. "I'm not now, nor have I ever been, stupid, Clark. Nor am I unobservant and you gave me plenty of opportunity to observe you." Lex picked up his cup of coffee, but didn't drink from it. "Especially in the last year or so," he added casually. Clark stiffened at the implication, but Lex wasn't finished yet. "Interesting clothing choices you made, Clark."

        Okay. So Lex knew he was Superman and was calling him on the lies of his adolescence. What was he going to do? His brain counseled a course of action involving not panicking and staying calm and finding out what Lex was trying to say. Unfortunately, his body had done some creative editing and had removed 'not' from before 'panicking' to right in front of 'staying calm'. His brain tried to stop it, to reimpose its authority over his body, but, by then, he was already involved in a shouting match with Lex, both of them tossing around accusations like they were playground insults. And then he was storming out of the restaurant, barely making it to an inconspicuous spot before taking flight.

        It was only when he was back in his apartment, preparing to gather up all of the gifts that the fear driving his temper ebbed enough for him to realise what he was doing. he sat down heavily. Yeah, what a _great_ Christmas. Not even being crazy in love was going to help him now.

***

        Clark took another nervous look through the walls. The scene hadn't changed since his last look, half a minute ago. Lex was still slouched in his desk's chair. The glass of something with a presumably high alcoholic content was still held loosely in one hand. The only thing that had changed was the screen saver on Lex's computer; it had given up the ghost and automatically shutdown to conserve power.

        As a contrast to Lex's absolute stillness, Clark was fidgeting. Or he would be, if one could be said to fidget while floating outside of the penthouse of metropolis' tallest building.

        Clark had a choice to make and, unlike matters of moral certitude, this one was giving him trouble. On the one hand, he could knock on Lex's window and present him with a gift and an apology in person. Or, on the other hand, he could chicken out and leave said gift and a written apology where Lex could find them and scram.

        he scowled. "When I put it _that_ way," he muttered to himself.

        But it was too late. Lex, with his uncanny ability to know when he was being watched, had moved from behind his desk to the glass doors leading out to the balcony and was now watching him with dark eyes.

        Clark held up the small gift he had brought with him and tried to look both hopeful and pleading. There was a long moment where neither of them did anything. Then Lex's hand fell from the pane it had been pressing on and unlocked the door.

        Instead of inviting Clark in, however, he stepped out himself. Clark managed to prevent his own expression from showing his disappointment by reminding himself that Lex had every right to be wary of him, especially after the way he had acted that morning.

        "Clark," Lex said at last, breaking the silence between them. "What can I do for you?" His voice was astonishingly neutral, given the emotions his eyes were broadcasting.

        Clark passed the gift from one hand to another. "I wanted to apologise," he told his hands. "I wasn't . . . thinking this morning." Until after he'd been shouting, anyway.

        Lex nodded at the gift he was holding. "And that?" he asked in that carefully neutral voice.

        "It's . . . part of the apology and, um, also a Christmas gift," Clark said, looking up just a bit. Lex's expression was still impassive, but he also stepped back inside and left the door open behind him. Clark took it as an invitation and nimbly 'hopped' the wall at the edge of the balcony.

        "Something to drink?" Lex asked without looking behind him.

        Oh, God, now what? If he refused, was Lex likely to clam up even tighter?

        "Water's good," he tried. A try that was paid off with the sharp grin Lex sent his way along with the blue bottle of water.

        And then Lex was beside him again, one hand gently touching the gift Clark was still holding. "May I?" he asked.

        Clark started and let go of the gift quickly. "Of course!" He shifted from one foot to the other as Lex carried it away from him. Either Lex was going to hate him when he opened the gift and would devote his life to plots aimed at killing the alien or . . . Lex would hate him and devote his life to ignoring Clark. The small, hopeful part of Clark that had wanted to give the gift in the first place was trying to put forth a more positive possible outcome, but it was easily lost in the sea of pessimism.

        He watched as Lex pulled at the wrapping paper. He stopped when he found he was analysing Lex's methods and applying that to their (defunct) friendship. Instead, he watched Lex's ear. It, at least, had no expressions with which to break his heart.

        "Clark?" Lex's puzzled voice made him shift his gaze to look Lex in the eye again. Lex held up what had been hidden underneath the paper: a crystal about as wide as two of Clark's fingers, an opaque white in the middle fading to a translucent pink at either end. "Not that I don't appreciate the thought, but . . . what is this?"

        "Um, it's a link," Clark said, dropping his eyes to avoid whatever reaction Lex might have. "To my Fortress. well, to the AI in it, really, but it'll also act as a key if you're ever down there. And you can use it to talk to me, only you probably won't because I've been an idiot." He hadn't meant to say that last bit, but his mind, as usual, was behind on its censoring job. He _had_ managed to keep the begging silent, though, so that was a plus.

        "And what's in your loft that needs to be unlocked," Lex finally asked, his voice even more neutral, if that were possible. Clark hadn't thought so, but there was still a lot he didn't know. He chanced a quick look at Lex, but the other man's face was as neutral as his voice. Lex, Clark decided, was either giving him a way out or was going to make him spell it out as repayment for lying about it for so long.

        Residual fear—of being experimented on, of Lex being disgusted, of being _different_ —made Clark wish he could take the first choice, no matter that he'd wrapped the crystal with the intent of taking the second, but, once again, his body overruled his brain.

        "Not my Fortress in Smallville. My Fortress in Antarctica." he took a deep breath. "The AI is a, a gift from my parents, almost. My _real_ parents," he clarified. "They sent it away with me when they sent me away. And they sent me away because their planet—my planet—was destroyed." Them, once again, he clamped his mouth shut, waiting for Lex's reaction.

        "Thank you, Clark," Lex said after a long moment of silence. His voice was soft and, when Clark peeked again, he wasn't looking at Clark. Rather, he was playing, almost, with the crystal Clark had given him, running his fingers along its sides and turning it over and over.

        And that left Clark standing there awkwardly while Lex was busy being fascinated with a piece of alien technology.

        "Also, I wanted to thank you," Clark said in a rush, when the waiting became too much. "For the gifts and the coffee and . . . everything. And, uh, I'll be going now . . . ?" The faintest hint of a question and Lex didn't look up. Clark knew he probably deserved that, but it didn't make his heart any less heavy as he turned.

        "Wait."

        That one word stopped Clark as nothing else was able to do. He turned to face Lex again, hope lifting his heart up on trembling wins. Forget about being crazy in love, he _missed_ Lex. he missed being able to barge in on his life without a moment's notice and still be welcome. He missed the impromptu contests they'd held, ranging from more appropriate names for Lionel, complete with the occasions for which they could be used, to seeing who could build the longest conga line of 'toy' soldiers.

        "Before you leave," Lex said firmly and Clark's heart's wings faltered. "before you leave," Lex repeated softly, "will you answer me one question?"

        Clark's heart fell even further, but he nodded. It hardly would have been fair to tell Lex only part of his story and then clam up about the rest.

        "Would you be my date new Year's Eve?"

        Clark opened his mouth, then, dumbfounded, closed it again. " . . . . huh?"

        "Would you be my date New Year's Eve?" Lex repeated patiently, a small smile playing about his lips.

        "Ummm . . . yes?"

        Lex nodded. "Then I'll see you at seven, sharp. Wear the silver package with the green bow," Lex added as Clark turned to leave again, this time in a daze.

        A date? With Lex? And then, as he broke out of his state of shock, he chuckled. He couldn't imagine a better way to ring in the new year than with Lex; after all, maybe Lex would be open to that kiss of luck.

        Yeah, maybe it wasn't so bad to be crazy in love, he thought as he took to the air. But only if it was reciprocated.


End file.
